From founding to 1956 as Dorita in ''
The Gang's All Here''. In 1946, she was the highest-paid actress in the United States. as Baroness Cecilia Duarte,
Don Ameche as Larry Martin and Baron Manuel Duarte, and
Carmen Miranda as Carmen in
That Night in Rio, produced by Fox in 1941 '' ''
Twentieth Century Pictures'
Joseph Schenck and
Darryl F. Zanuck left
United Artists over a stock dispute, and began merger talks with the management of financially struggling
Fox Film, under President Sidney Kent.
Spyros Skouras, then manager of the
Fox West Coast Theaters, helped make it happen (and later became president of the new company). Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures merged in 1935. Initially, it was speculated in
The New York Times that the newly merged company would be named "Fox-Twentieth Century". The new company, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31, 1935. Kent remained at the company, joining Schenck and Zanuck. Zanuck replaced
Winfield Sheehan as the company's production chief. The company established a special training school.
Lynn Bari,
Patricia Farr and
Anne Nagel were among 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" on August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with Twentieth Century-Fox after spending 18 months in the school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years. For many years, Twentieth Century-Fox identified themselves as having been founded in 1915, the year Fox Film was founded. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, it has considered the 1935 merger as its founding in recent years, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915. The company's films retained the Twentieth Century Pictures searchlight logo on their opening credits as well as its opening fanfare, but with the name changed to Twentieth Century-Fox. After the merger was completed, Zanuck signed young actors to help carry Twentieth Century-Fox:
Tyrone Power,
Linda Darnell,
Carmen Miranda,
Don Ameche,
Henry Fonda,
Gene Tierney,
Sonja Henie, and
Betty Grable. Twentieth Century-Fox also hired
Alice Faye and
Shirley Temple, who appeared in several major films for the studio in the 1930s. Higher attendance during World War II helped Twentieth Century-Fox overtake
RKO and
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to become the third most profitable film studio. In 1941, Zanuck was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Signal Corps and assigned to supervise the production of U.S. Army training films. His partner,
William Goetz, filled in at Twentieth Century-Fox. In 1942,
Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio. During the next few years, with pictures like
Wilson (1944), ''
The Razor's Edge (1946), Boomerang, Gentleman's Agreement (both 1947), The Snake Pit (1948), and Pinky'' (1949), Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Twentieth Century-Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as
Ben Ames Williams'
Leave Her to Heaven (1945), starring
Gene Tierney, which was the highest-grossing Twentieth Century-Fox film of the 1940s. The studio also produced film versions of Broadway musicals, including the
Rodgers and Hammerstein films, beginning with the musical version of
State Fair (1945), the only work that the partnership wrote specially for films. After the war, audiences slowly drifted away. Twentieth Century-Fox held on to its theaters until a court-mandated "divorce"; they were spun off as Fox National Theaters in 1953. That year, with attendance at half the 1946 level, Twentieth Century-Fox gambled on an unproven process. Noting that the two film sensations of 1952 had been
Cinerama, which required three projectors to fill a giant curved screen, and "Natural Vision"
3D, which got its effects of depth by requiring the use of polarized glasses, Twentieth Century-Fox mortgaged its studio to buy rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. President
Spyros Skouras struck a deal with the inventor
Henri Chrétien, leaving the other film studios empty-handed, and in 1953 introduced
CinemaScope in the studio's groundbreaking feature film
The Robe. Zanuck announced in February 1953 that henceforth all Twentieth Century-Fox pictures would be made in CinemaScope. To convince theater owners to install this new process, Twentieth Century-Fox agreed to help pay conversion costs (about $25,000 per screen); and to ensure enough product, Twentieth Century-Fox leased access to CinemaScope to any rival studio choosing to use it. Seeing the box-office for the first two CinemaScope features,
The Robe and
How to Marry a Millionaire (also 1953),
Warner Bros.,
MGM,
RKO,
Universal-International,
Columbia,
UA,
Allied Artists, and
Disney quickly adopted the process. In 1956, Twentieth Century-Fox engaged
Robert Lippert to establish a subsidiary company,
Regal Pictures, later
Associated Producers Incorporated to film
B pictures in CinemaScope (but "branded" RegalScope). Twentieth Century-Fox produced new musicals using the CinemaScope process including
Carousel and
The King and I (both 1956). CinemaScope brought a brief upturn in attendance, but by 1956 the numbers again began to slide. That year Darryl Zanuck announced his resignation as head of production. Zanuck moved to Paris, setting up as an independent producer, seldom being in the United States for many years. In mid 1956, the company loaned the pre-1948 film library, including TV distribution rights, but not the copyrights of these films, to
National Telefilm Associates for 10 years.
Production and financial problems Zanuck's successor, producer
Buddy Adler, died a year later. President Spyros Skouras brought in a series of production executives, but none had Zanuck's success. By the early 1960s, Twentieth Century-Fox was in trouble. A new version of
Cleopatra (1963) began production in 1959 with
Joan Collins in the lead. and two months later she was found dead. According to Twentieth Century-Fox files, she was rehired within weeks for a two-picture deal totaling $1 million, $500,000 to finish ''Something's Got to Give
(plus a bonus at completion), and another $500,000 for What a Way to Go''. Elizabeth Taylor's disruptive reign on the
Cleopatra set continued unchallenged from 1960 into 1962, though three Twentieth Century-Fox executives went to
Rome in June 1962 to fire her. They learned that director
Joseph L. Mankiewicz had filmed out of sequence and had only done interiors, so Twentieth Century-Fox was then forced to allow Taylor several more weeks of filming. In the meantime during that summer of 1962 Fox released nearly all of its contract stars to offset burgeoning costs, including
Jayne Mansfield. With few pictures on the schedule, Skouras wanted to rush Zanuck's big-budget war epic
The Longest Day (1962), The unfinished scenes from ''Something's Got to Give
were shelved for nearly 40 years. Rather than being rushed into release as if it were a B-picture, The Longest Day'' was lovingly and carefully produced under Zanuck's supervision. It was finally released at a length of three hours and was well received. At the next board meeting, Zanuck spoke for eight hours, convincing directors that Skouras was mismanaging the company and that he was the only possible successor. Zanuck was installed as chairman, and then named his son
Richard Zanuck as president. This new management group seized
Cleopatra and rushed it to completion, shut down the studio, laid off the entire staff to save money, axed the long-running
Movietone Newsreel (the archives of which are now owned by
Fox News), and made a series of cheap, popular pictures that restored Twentieth Century-Fox as a major studio. The saving grace for the studio's fortunes came from the tremendous success of
The Sound of Music (1965), an expensive and handsomely produced film adaptation of the
highly acclaimed Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, which became a significant success at the box office and won five
Academy Awards, including
Best Director (
Robert Wise) and
Best Picture of the Year. Twentieth Century-Fox also had two big science-fiction hits in the decade:
Fantastic Voyage (1966), and the original
Planet of the Apes (1968), starring
Charlton Heston,
Kim Hunter, and
Roddy McDowall.
Fantastic Voyage was the last film made in
CinemaScope; the studio had held on to the format while
Panavision lenses were being used elsewhere. Zanuck stayed on as chairman until 1971, but there were several expensive flops in his last years, resulting in Twentieth Century-Fox posting losses from 1969 to 1971. Following his removal and replacement by
Dennis Stanfill as chairman, and after an uncertain period, new management brought Twentieth Century-Fox back to health. Under president
Gordon T. Stulberg and production head
Alan Ladd, Jr., Twentieth Century-Fox films connected with modern audiences. Board chairman Dennis Stanfill used the profits to acquire resort properties, soft-drink bottlers,
Australian theaters and other properties in an attempt to diversify enough to offset the boom-or-bust cycle of picture-making. Foreshadowing a pattern of film production still yet to come, in late 1973 Twentieth Century-Fox partnered with Warner Bros. to co-produce
The Towering Inferno (1974), an all-star action blockbuster from producer
Irwin Allen. Both studios found themselves owning the rights to books about burning skyscrapers. Allen insisted on a meeting with the heads of both studios and announced that as Twentieth Century-Fox was already in the lead with their property it would be career suicide to have competing movies. Thus the first joint-venture studio deal was struck. In hindsight, while it may be commonplace now, back in the 1970s, it was a risky, but revolutionary, idea that paid off handsomely at both domestic and international box offices around the world. Twentieth Century-Fox's success reached new heights by backing the most profitable film made up to that time,
Star Wars (1977). Substantial financial gains were realized as a result of the film's unprecedented success: from a low of $6 in June 1976, stock prices more than quadrupled to almost $27 after
Star Wars release; 1976 revenues of $195 million rose to $301 million in 1977.
Marvin Davis and Rupert Murdoch , Century City headquarters completed in 1987|alt= With financial stability came new owners, when 20th Century-Fox was sold for $720 million on June 8, 1981, to investors
Marc Rich and
Marvin Davis. 20th Century-Fox's assets included
Pebble Beach Golf Links, the
Aspen Skiing Company and a
Century City property upon which Davis built and twice sold
Fox Plaza. In 1982, the company decided to try on capitalizing the video game industry by forming the company's first video game division,
Fox Video Games, in order to sell cartridges for consoles and computers, under the "Games of the Century" slogan, but the division failed due to the
video game crash of 1983. By 1984, Rich had become a fugitive from justice, having fled to Switzerland after being charged by U.S. federal prosecutors with tax evasion, racketeering and illegal trading with Iran during the
Iran hostage crisis. Rich's assets were frozen by U.S. authorities. In 1984,
Marvin Davis bought out
Marc Rich's 50% interest in 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation for an undisclosed amount, To gain FCC approval of 20th Century-Fox's purchase of
Metromedia's television holdings, once the stations of the long-dissolved
DuMont network, Murdoch had to become a U.S. citizen. He did so in 1985, and in 1986 the new
Fox Broadcasting Company took to the air. Over the next 20-odd years the network and owned-stations group expanded to become extremely profitable for News Corporation. Then in 1993, 20th Century Fox bought the superhero rights to the
X-Men, while the
Fantastic Four was bought in 1998. Then
Bryan Singer directed the
first film and the
second film, while
Brett Ratner was hired to direct the
third film of the original trilogy. In 1994, 20th Century Fox would establish four new divisions:
Fox Searchlight Pictures,
Fox Family Films,
Fox Animation Studios, and
Fox 2000 Pictures. Fox Searchlight would specialize in the
specialty and
indie film market, with
Thomas Rothman, then president of production at
The Samuel Goldwyn Company, being brought on to head up the new studio. It was soon given its name with Rothman as its founding president. Fox Family Films was tasked with producing films geared towards families, under
John Matoian. Fox Animation Studios was established on August 9, 1994, designed to compete with
Walt Disney Feature Animation, whom had found success in the
Disney Renaissance.
Don Bluth and
Gary Goldman of the failing
Sullivan Bluth Studios were appointed to head the new $100 million animation studio. Fox 2000 Pictures was formed to specialize in mid-budget-ranging films targeted towards underserved groups of audiences, with
Laura Ziskin brought on as president. In November 1995, 20th Century Fox entered a $50 million agreement to purchase the library of bankrupt
Carolco Pictures, which would have given Fox the rights to make a sequel based on the hit Carolco film
Terminator 2: Judgement Day. However, Fox dropped their bid in January 1996, after French company
Canal+ submitted a $58 million counterbid for the assets. In August 1997, Fox's Los Angeles-based visual effects company, VIFX, acquired
majority interest in
Blue Sky Studios to form a new visual effects and animation company, temporarily renamed "Blue Sky/VIFX". Blue Sky had previously did the character animation of MTV Films' first film ''
Joe's Apartment. ''Following the studio's expansion, Blue Sky produced character animation for the films
Alien Resurrection,
A Simple Wish,
Mouse Hunt,
Star Trek: Insurrection and
Fight Club. VIFX was later sold to another VFX studio
Rhythm and Hues Studios in March 1999. According to Blue Sky founder
Chris Wedge, Fox considered selling Blue Sky as well by 2000 due to financial difficulties in the visual effects industry in general. In February 1998, following the success of Fox Animation Studios' first film
Anastasia, Fox Family Films changed its name to
Fox Animation Studios and dropped its live action production. which would be picked up by other production units. The actual Fox Animation Studios would become a division of the formerly-named Fox Family Films, being referred to as the Phoenix studio. However, Fox Animation Studios in Los Angeles would be renamed to
20th Century Fox Animation between 1998 and 1999. The Phoenix studio would face financial problems, eventually with Fox laying off 300 of the nearly 380 people who worked at the Phoenix studio to "make films more efficiently". After the box-office failure of
Titan A.E., Fox Animation Studios would shut down on June 26, 2000. Their last film set to be made would have been an adaptation of
Wayne Barlowe's illustrated novel ''
Barlowe's Inferno, and was set to be done entirely with computer animation. Another film they would have made was The Little Beauty King
, an adult animated film directed by Steve Oedekerk, which would have been a satire of the films from the Disney Renaissance. It would predate Shrek'' (2001). Chris Wedge, film producer Lori Forte, and Fox Animation executive
Chris Meledandri presented Fox with a script for a comedy feature film titled
Ice Age. Studio management pressured staff to sell their remaining shares and options to Fox on the promise of continued employment on feature-length films. The studio moved to White Plains, New York and started production on
Ice Age. As the film wrapped, Fox, having little faith in the film, feared that it might bomb at the box office. Fox terminated half of the production staff and tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer for the film and the studio. Instead,
Ice Age was released by Fox in conjunction with Twentieth Century Fox Animation on March 15, 2002, to critical and commercial success, receiving a nomination for an
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the
75th Academy Awards in 2003.
Ice Age would spawn a
franchise and bolster
Blue Sky into producing feature films and becoming a
household name in feature animation. 's Los Angeles studios in 2005 From 2000 to 2010, 20th Century Fox was the international distributor for
MGM/
UA releases. In the 1980s, 20th Century Fox – through a joint venture with
CBS called
CBS/Fox Video – had distributed certain UA films on video; thus UA has come full circle by switching to 20th Century Fox for video distribution. 20th Century Fox also makes money distributing films for small independent film companies. In 2006, 20th Century Fox terminated its production with
Bad Hat Harry Productions for five years, because Bryan Singer left
X-Men: The Last Stand to direct
Superman Returns (2006) for
Warner Bros. Pictures, then he returned to produce the
first film and direct its
sequel in the prequel trilogy, starting in 2011. In late 2006,
Fox Atomic was started up under
Fox Searchlight head
Peter Rice and COO John Hegeman as a sibling production division under Fox Filmed Entertainment. In the same year, Twentieth Century Fox started
Fox International Productions, but the division was closed in 2017.
Chernin Entertainment was founded by Peter Chernin after he stepped down as president of 20th Century Fox's then-parent company News Corporation in 2009. Chernin Entertainment's five-year
first-look deal for the film and television was signed with 20th Century Fox and 20th Century Fox Television in 2009.
21st Century Fox era On June 28, 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corporation would be split into two publishing and media-oriented companies: a
new News Corporation and
21st Century Fox, which operated the
Fox Entertainment Group and 20th Century Fox. Murdoch considered the name of the new company a way to maintain the 20th Century Fox heritage. On August 20, 2012, 20th Century Fox entered a five-year distribution agreement with
DreamWorks Animation, which began in 2013, after their distribution deal with
Paramount Pictures ended with the 2012 release of
Rise of the Guardians. DreamWorks Animation's first film to be distributed under the new agreement was
The Croods.
Fox Stage Productions was formed in June 2013. In August, the same year, 20th Century Fox started a theatrical joint venture with a trio of producers, both film and theater,
Kevin McCollum,
John Davis and Tom McGrath. On September 20, 2017,
Locksmith Animation formed a multi-year production deal with 20th Century Fox, who would distribute Locksmith's films under
20th Century Fox Animation, with Locksmith aiming to release a film every 12–18 months. The deal was to bolster Blue Sky's output and replace the loss of distributing DreamWorks Animation films, which are now owned and distributed by
Universal Pictures, following its acquisition by
NBCUniversal in 2016, after their distribution deal with 20th Century Fox ended with the release of
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. The first film to be released under the production company was ''
Ron's Gone Wrong'', which was released on October 22, 2021, by 20th Century Studios and was the only film to be released by the studio. Technoprops, a VFX company that worked on
Avatar and
The Jungle Book, was purchased in April 2017 to operate as Fox VFX Lab. Technoprops' founder Glenn Derry would continue to run the company as vice president of visual effect reporting to Gerard Bevan and John Kilkenny, VFX president. On October 30, 2017, Vanessa Morrison was named president of a newly created 20th Century Fox division, Fox Family, reporting to the chairman & CEO and Vice Chairman of 20th Century Fox. The family division would develop films that appeal to younger moviegoers and their parents both animated films and films with live-action elements. Also, the division would oversee the studio's family animated television business, which produces holiday television specials based on existing film properties, and oversee feature film adaptation of its TV shows. To replace Morrison at Fox Animation, Andrea Miloro and Robert Baird were named co-presidents of 20th Century Fox Animation. 20th Century Fox issued a default notice in regards to its licensing agreement for the under-construction
20th Century Fox World theme park in Malaysia by Genting Malaysia Bhd. In November 2018 Genting Malaysia filed suit in response and included soon to be parent
the Walt Disney Company.
Disney era , Los Angeles On December 14, 2017, Disney announced plans to purchase most of 21st Century Fox, including 20th Century Fox, for $52.4 billion. After a bid from
Comcast (owner of
NBCUniversal) for $65 billion, Disney counterbid with $71.3 billion. On July 19, 2018, Comcast dropped out of the bid for 21st Century Fox in favor of
Sky plc and
Sky UK. Eight days later, Disney and 21st Century Fox shareholders approved the merger between the two companies. 20th Century Fox was not planning to relocate to
Walt Disney Studios in
Burbank, but retained its headquarters in Century City on the Fox Studio Lot, which is currently leased to Disney by 21st Century Fox's successor,
Fox Corporation, for seven years. Various units were moved out from under 20th Century Fox at acquisition in months after the merger along with several rounds of layoffs. The Fox Research Library was folded into the Walt Disney Archives and
Walt Disney Imagineering Archives in January 2020. The last film to use the "20th Century Fox" name was
Underwater, which was released on January 10, 2020. After the box office failures of films like
Dark Phoenix and
Stuber, Disney
halted development on several projects, though films such as
Free Guy and the
Avatar sequels managed to continue production. Fox's slate would be reduced to 10 films per year, half of them being made for the
Hulu and then-upcoming
Disney+ streaming services. Projects from 20th Century Fox franchises such as
Home Alone,
Cheaper by the Dozen,
Night at the Museum,
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and
Ice Age were later announced for Disney+. These projects would later be fully revealed during Disney's Investor Day in December 2020 as feature films for the aforementioned streaming service. The first of these projects was
Home Sweet Home Alone, which was released on November 12, 2021. On January 17, 2020, Disney renamed the studio to "20th Century Studios", which served to help avoid brand confusion with Fox Corporation. Similar to other Disney film units, distribution of 20th Century Studios films is now handled in North America by
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and internationally by their sub-division
Buena Vista International, while
Searchlight Pictures operates their own autonomous distribution and marketing unit.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment distributes the films produced by 20th Century and Searchlight in home media under their respective labels. The first film released by Disney under the studio's new name was
The Call of the Wild, which was released on February 21, 2020. That same year,
Ford vs. Ferrari (2019), among its four Academy Award nominations, earned the studio its first Best Picture nomination post-Disney acquisition. In the same year, held-over production president Emma Watts left the company. On March 12, 2020, Steve Asbell was named president, production of 20th Century Studios, while Morrison was named president, streaming, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production to oversee live-action development and production of
Walt Disney Pictures and 20th Century Studios for
Disney+. Philip Steuer will now lead physical and post-production and VFX, as president of production at Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production. Randi Hiller will now lead casting as executive VP casting, overseeing both Walt Disney Pictures and 20th Century Studios. Steuer has served as executive VP of physical production for Walt Disney Studios since 2015, and Hiller has led casting for Walt Disney Studios since 2011. Both will dual-report to Asbell and
Sean Bailey. On September 1, 2020, the Japanese branch of 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Fox Japan, was absorbed into Disney Japan; 20th Century Studios' previous involvement with
Toei Company as the Japanese co-distributor and Asian distributor for
Dragon Ball films ended and were later taken over by
Crunchyroll and
Sony Pictures Releasing (via
Sony Pictures Releasing International) outside of Japan, under license from
Toei Animation. On February 9, 2021, Disney announced that
Blue Sky Studios would shut down in April 2021, and that it would be succeeded by
20th Century Animation. A spokesperson for the company explained that in light of the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic's continued economic impact on all of its businesses, it was no longer sustainable for them to run a third feature animation studio. In addition, production on a film adaptation of the webcomic
Nimona, originally scheduled to be released on January 14, 2022, was cancelled as a result of its closure. The studio's film library and intellectual properties are retained by Disney via 20th Century Animation. Although Disney did not give an exact date as to when the studio would be closing down initially, former animator Rick Fournier confirmed on April 10 it was their last day of operation, three days after founder Chris Wedge released a farewell letter on social media.
Nimona would be picked up by
Annapurna Pictures in early 2022 for release on
Netflix in 2023. /
Star originals produced by them). The first film to use this was
Vacation Friends. On November 22, 2021,
Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution and
WarnerMedia reached an agreement to allow select 20th Century Studios films be shared between
Disney+,
Hulu, and
HBO Max through late 2022. The new agreement negotiated by Gerard Devan and John Gelke is an amendment to the original agreement between 20th Century Fox and HBO that Disney inherited after its acquisition of Fox in 2019, and as such, is not expected to be renewed. Following the end of the 20th Century-HBO deal, Disney planned to retain the 20th Century films on their own streaming platforms going forward after 2022. The first film to this new strategy was ''
Ron's Gone Wrong. Also in 2021, Disney had launched a video game based-studio 20th Century Games. Similar to its predecessors—FoxNext, Fox Interactive and 20th Century Fox Games—it acts as a distributor and has partnered with other triple-A game studios. Its first title was Aliens: Fireteam Elite''. On February 8, 2022, Steven Spielberg's 2021 film version of
West Side Story, among its seven Academy Award nominations, earned 20th Century Studios its first Best Picture nomination post-rebranding. In March 2023, it was announced that
Marvel Comics would be launching a 20th Century Studios imprint, which would release comics based on 20th Century franchises. The first comic under the label would be a
Planet of the Apes comic. On February 26, 2024,
Walt Disney Pictures announced the immediate departure of its president,
Sean Bailey, with Searchlight Pictures president David Greenbaum assuming his position. Greenbaum would lead Walt Disney Pictures and co-lead 20th Century with Steve Asbell as president. In April 2025, Disney announced that it would not renew its lease with Fox Corporation and that it would vacate the Fox Studio Lot in Century City at the end of 2025. As a result, 20th Century relocated to the
Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. ==Television division==